Wallace
Wallace is the titular main protagonist of the Wallace and Gromit franchise (with the exception of the video game Project Zoo where he serves as the deuteragonist). He is an inveterate inventor and Gromit's owner and best friend. He is voiced by the late Peter Sallis (1989-2010) and Ben Whitehead (2010–present). It is mentioned that Wallace was born on 7 August 1959, so Wallace is approximately 55 years old. This was mentioned by Nick Park in 2009. Biography ''A Grand Day Out'' (1989) Wallace and Gromit read through brochures to decide where to go for a bank holiday trip. Wallace goes to the kitchen to get himself and Gromit tea, crackers and cheese. Upon discovering that there is no cheese in the house, Wallace decides that he and Gromit should go somewhere where there is cheese. He reads a brochure about cheese holidays before looking out his window at the moon and decides that he and Gromit should go there as "everyone knows that the moon is made of cheese". After constructing a rocket, Wallace and Gromit fly to the moon and begin to try its cheese, which is not like any cheese Wallace has ever tasted. During their time there, the pair come across a coin operated robot, who wishes to go to Earth to ski. After the robot is activated a second time, it begins to chase Wallace and Gromit, who flee back to the rocket, believing that the robot is chasing them for taking the moon's cheese when it is actually wanting to come back to Earth with them. Wallace and Gromit get into the rocket, but it does not take off as Gromit forgot to light the fuse. Fortunately, the rocket takes off after the robot accidentally causes a gas leak. Parts of the rocket fall off as it takes off, which the robot uses as skis as Wallace and Gromit watch on as they fly back home. ''The Wrong Trousers'' (1993) On Gromit's birthday, Wallace gives a collar and leash, much to Gromit's displeasure. Wallace also presents Techno-Trousers to take Gromit for a walk. At the same time, Wallace decides to rent out the spare room in his and Gromit's house in order to pay off debts. A penguin named Feathers McGraw becomes the pair's new lodger, but is not satisfied with the condition of the spare room and takes Gromit's bedroom instead, resulting in Gromit in moving into the spare room. Feathers then begins to win Wallace's favor, resulting in Gromit (feeling pushed out) to leave home. Wallace wakes up and was put into the Techno-Trousers by Feathers (who is actually a criminal, who wears a rubber glove in his head to disguise himself as a chicken) who walks Wallace around town, tiring Wallace out and makes him fall asleep. That night as Wallace sleeps, Feathers activates the Techno-Trousers (with Wallace still in them) and goes to the museum and uses Wallace to steal a diamond from there. However, in doing so, triggers the burglar alarm, waking up Wallace, who is confused at what is going on. Feathers quickly uses the Techno-Trousers to get Wallace out of the museum and back home. Upon arriving back home, Wallace discovers who Feathers really is, but is forced into a wardrobe by him. Wallace with help from Gromit, breaks out of the wardrobe and purses Feathers around the house, with Wallace managing to confiscate Feather's pistol. After apprehending Feathers, Wallace and Gromit send him to the police station. Because of their actions, the police give the pair reward money, which Wallace uses to pay off the debts. ''A Close Shave'' (1995) Wallace and Gromit take up the job of window washing. One day they get a phone call from a woman, who runs a wool shop whose windows need cleaning. After arriving at the wool shop, Wallace meets and falls in love with the woman, who introduces herself as Wendolene Ramsbottom and also introduces Wallace to her dog Preston. Wallace and Gromit go home and find a sheep there, whom Wallace names Shaun. Wallace puts Shaun into his Knit-O-Matic to clean him up, but the machine malfunctions and Shaun is sheared and his wool is made into a jumper, which Wallace puts on him later. One day, Wallace goes to the wool shop again and talks with Wendolene. However, he is later dragged away after Gromit releases Shaun and other sheep that Preston had put into a van. Wallace sadly reads in a newspaper that Gromit has been charged and imprisoned for apparently rusling the sheep. Wendolene later visits and asks Wallace to stay away from her and her shop, saying that she's not good enough for him and that she is sorry about Gromit. Wallace and the sheep later break Gromit out of jail. The group hide in a field where a van arrives and Preston and Wendolene (who is Preston's reluctant accomplice) come out of it. Wendolene blows a whistle to lure the sheep into the van but then turns against Preston and demands that the rustling must stop. However, Preston forces her and Shaun into the van with the rest of the sheep and drives off. Wallace and Gromit give chase, but get separated. Wallace manages to get the sheep out of the van but ends up falling into the van, taking the sheep with them. Preston brings them to the wool shop and into the back factory and attempts to turn Wallace, Wendolene and the sheep into dog food. Fortunately, Gromit and Shaun defeat Preston (who is revealed to be a robot created by Wendolene's father to be her protector but went rogue). Wendolene visits Wallace again and thanks to him for rebuilding Preston and returning him to his original good self. Wallace invites Wendolene to join him and Gromit for cheese, only for Wendolene to tell him that cheese brings her out in a rash. After Wendolene and Preston leave, Wallace prepares to eat the cheese, only to find Shaun eating it, much to Wallace's annoyance. ''Rex the Runt'' Wallace makes a cameo appearance in the Series 1 episode "Adventures on Telly Part I". ''Wallace and Gromit's Cracking Contraptions'' (2002) Wallace, along with Gromit, appears in these 10 shorts which depict Wallace having made an invention with Gromit being skeptical about it. ''Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Wererabbit'' (2005) In this film, Wallace and Gromit run a humane pest control company. They are contacted by Lady Tottington who has a rabbit infestation on the run-up to a vegetable competition. Wallace develops a crush on Lady Tottington. Wallace uses his latest invention Mind Manipulation-O-Matic to brainwash the rabbits into hating vegetables. Wallace accidentally sents the machine to blow, causing one of the rabbits to merge minds with him. The rabbit shows no interest in vegetables, showing that the transfer worked. Wallace decides to name the rabbit Hutch. News later spreads of a Wererabbit in town. Wallace and Gromit set out to capture it. At first, Wallace believes that Hutch is the Wererabbit and so puts him in a high-security cage. However, it is later discovered that Wallace is actually the Wererabbit due to the effects of the Mind Manipulation O-Matic. Local hunter Victor Quartermaine offers to kill the Wererabbit and after discovering that it is Wallace, attempts to kill him so he could have Lady Tottington to himself. Wallace transforms again and causes havoc at the competition and takes Lady Tottington atop Tottington Hall and reveals who he is to her. Victor arrives and tries to shoot Wallace with 24-carat gold bullets. Wallace is later confronted by an angry mob, but Gromit manages to divert their attention by disguising Victor as the Wererabbit, causing the mob to chase him instead. Wallace returns to his human form and appears to have died. Fortunately, Gromit manages to bring him round by using Stinking Bishop Cheese. ''A Matter of Loaf and Death (2008) Wallace and Gromit run a bakers service called Top Bun. One day while out delivering bread, Wallace sees Piella Bakewell, the former star of the Bake-O-Lite bread adverts, losing control of her bike and starts to head towards the crocodile enclosure at West Wallaby Street Zoo with her dog Fluffles. Luckily, Wallace manages to save them. Wallace and Piella fall in love and begin dating before eventually becoming engaged. Later in the film, Wallace discovers that Piella is actually a serial killer who has killed twelve other bakers and plans to kill Wallace to make a baker's dozen as revenge after Bake-O-Lite fired her after she became too heavy to ride the Bake-O-Lite balloon due to eating too many baked products. Piella attempts to kill Wallace with a bomb disguised as a cake, but Gromit and Fluffles manage to prevent this. Wallace then watches Piella escape on the Bake-O-Lite balloon, but due to her weight, she falls into the crocodile enclosure and is eaten alive. Despite what had happened, Wallace mourns Piella and imagines her as her younger thinner self flying away on the balloon. Wallace and Gromit continue with their baker business and are joined by Fluffles. Other appearances Video Games Wallace and Gromit: Project Zoo Wallace appears in the 2003 video game "Project Zoo" where he and Gromit head to the zoo to give their adopted polar bear Archie a birthday present. However, after arriving at the zoo, they discover that Feathers McGraw has escaped and has kidnapped Archie and plans to turn the zoo into a diamond mind. Wallace and Gromit's Grand Adventures He also appears in the 2009 video game "Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures" where he and Gromit start a honey delivery business. However, after growing giant flowers to make honey, it also made the bees grow big. Wallace managed to make a formula to shrink the bees back to their normal size but has also shrunk himself in the process. Shortly after that, Wallace planned a seaside holiday with Gromit to Blackpool, but the bad weather put a damper on their plans. However, after the basement was flooded, Wallace had an idea to turn it into an indoor seaside resort. Although failing at first, Wallace managed to satisfy his customers before they all gathered into the dining room for supper. However, the lights go out and one of the visitors, Duncan McBiscuit, has disappeared. After it was discovered that Duncan was thumped by Felicity Flitt's two dogs, Poochy-woo and Tinky-wee, they attack Wallace in the basement, but thanks to Gromit, they managed to land the two dogs in jail. After hearing that the animal shelter was wrecked in the storm, Wallace and Gromit start an ice cream business to raise money to rebuild the shelter. Wallace was then visited by Monty Muzzle, who was running a fair to supposedly raise money for the shelter and wants Wallace and Gromit to help raise profits. Wallace accepts and he and Gromit go to the fair. However, Wallace soon discovered that the fair was a scam where Muzzle had being slaving dogs for his ride to make money. Wallace then exposed the ride and freed most of the dogs along with Gromit, but Muzzle escapes on a hot air balloon with the money and Twitch. After chasing Muzzle in the air, Wallace and Gromit land him in jail where he ends up in the same cell as Poochy-woo and Tinky-wee. While cleaning up the wreckage of his ice cream maker, Wallace shows Ms. Flitt a nut, who mistakes it for an engagement ring. Some time afterward, Wallace ends up joining the Prickley Thicket country club, where he eventually discovers that the golf course was built over 62 West Wallaby Street. He then participates in the tournament against McBiscuit and wins, making him the new chairman. However, while proceeding to tear up the deed to the golf course, he and the other citizens get caught in a sand trap until they were rescued by Gromit. After tearing up the deed, Wallace and Gromit return home. Personality Wallace is a kind-hearted, friendly, and eccentric man and an avid lover of cheese (particularly with crackers). Aside from his near-genius intellect and an expert intricate inventor which are normally quite complex for the situation he created the machine to deal with in the first place, the two more well-known of Wallace's contraptions are his rocket and the robotic walking pants he created for his best friends Gromit's birthday. But despite this, Wallace can be quite gullible at times this was most obvious when he went to the moon thinking that it was made out of cheese and actually ate a loose rock. He was also completely oblivious that his girlfriend, Piella Bakewell was a serial killer despite her more than obvious mental illness. Wallace is a man of many jobs which include exterminator, baker, landlord, window-washer and (although not technically a real job) inventor. Wallace also possesses a more romantic side to him and has had previous relationships with people such as Piella Bakewell, Lady Tottington and Wendolene. However the strongest relationship that Wallace had was with his pet dog, Gromit whom he adopted and treated like his brother since he was a puppy. However there are times when their friendship was strained, which was shown when he invited the penguin Feathers McGraw to stay and was unaware of how it was upsetting his friend and when he was left completely smitten by Piella he instantly believed that it was Gromit who bit her when in reality, she did it herself. However Wallace valued his relationship more than anything and the two have always proved their loyalty to another. Despite being eccentric, Wallace was very brave and heroic when he saved Lady Tottington from Victor Quartermaine (in Were-Rabbit form) and he was very dedicated to her when he protects her from the angry mob (who all thought that he was trying to hurt Totty) and from Victor again (while he was climbing up the pipe to get after Wallace). While Wallace is mostly good-natured, when transformed into the Were-Rabbit the worst aspects of his personality appear, becoming destructive, violent and aggressive, in which his only diet was vegetables and would do anything to get his paws on them. However when he regained control of his Were-Rabbit form, he still retained his feelings of loyalty and love to the people he cared about, and in the end, it broke his curse. Skills He delights in creating elaborate contraptions that often do not work as intended. He is a self-proclaimed genius, evident from his exclamation when he discovers Hutch's borrowed skill, a talent for all things mechanical. Most of Wallace's inventions look not unlike the designs of Heath Robinson and Rube Goldberg; creator Nick Park has said of Wallace that all his inventions are designed around the principle of "using a sledgehammer to crack a nut" Appearance Wallace can usually be found wearing a white shirt, brown wool trousers, green knitted pullover and a red tie. He is slender and has fair skin. When he was younger, he had brown hair and a mustache but when he got older, he had a tuft of hair when he was in a picture with Gromit (on his graduation from Dogwarts University) by now, Wallace is bald. He is usually seen wearing black shoes and slippers on his feet. Due to eating too much cheese, Wallace gained a bulk build, but after eating loads of vegetables (in Were-Rabbit form) he had gone a little thinner (and possibly slowing down his cheese appetite). *Wallace is also seen wearing a red bow tie with white polka dots on special occasions. He was wearing a purple pullover with baby blue, white and purple zigzag lines (knitted by Gromit) until it got shrunk by water thanks to Gromit for turning the taps on in Lady Tottington's secret garden. *In ''The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Wallace sometimes wears an Anti-Pesto uniform and cap. *In The Last Resort, after Wallace get all the things he need for the Seaside in the cellar, Wallace is wearing an orange tie, a red shirt with white stripes, and red trousers. *In The Bogey Man, after Gromit makes Wallace join Prickly Thicket, Wallace is wearing a Prickly Thicket official tanktop instead of his pullover for the rest of the episode. Trivia *Peter Sallis was the first choice for voicing Wallace. *Some of Wallace's contraptions actually are based on a real-life invention. For example, Wallace's method of getting up in the morning incorporates a bed that tips over to wake up its owner, an invention that was exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851 by Theophilus Carter, and is similar to a device sold in Japan that is used to ensure a certain wake-up time. *He and Gromit both live together at the fictitious address of 62 West Wallaby Street, Wigan, Lancashire. However, his accent, as voiced by Peter Sallis, is from Sallis' native Holme Valley in Yorkshire. *Wallace made a cameo appearance in the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends episode "Ticket to Rod" and was seen in Nana's 2nd photo panting alongside Gromit and Ginger with a case of an astronaut suit in A Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper. *Nick Park says of Wallace: "He's a very self-contained figure. A very homely sort who doesn't mind the odd adventure." Wallace is loosely based on Park's father, whom he described in a radio interview as "an incurable tinkerer." He described one of his father's constructions, a combination beach hut and trailer, as having curtains in the windows, bookshelves on the walls, and full-sized furniture bolted to the floor. *Wallace's original voice actor, Peter Sallis, died on June 2, 2017, at the age of 96. Since then, Ben Whitehead now voices him. 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